I'm a top Craftster!!!

So, I'm pretty much addicted to the crafting website Craftster
http://www.craftster.org/forum/
I've posted a lot of my art/craft on it and it's pretty fun. But I was pleasantly and proudly surprised that one of my posts-the funkrustico chair throne, made top five in the garden/outdoor art thread.
It's really an honor to me-there is a lot of very cool stuff posted. But it's also a little odd-because I will post some of my art that I think is really my best and none even notices it...
My daughters think that I'm a total dork for getting all gushy proud, but hey-I take kudos wherever I can!!

Here's some more ephemera to share. I'm trying to attack the mounds and mounds of paper I have accumulated. I know some people sell it on Etsy and EBAY, but I wonder if it's really worth the trouble?

These are all from a Serbo-Croation Alphabet book-I have no idea what copyright laws were like under communism....

Art for the masses!!

This is a series of little mini collages I made. I got a big bag of miniature oil paintings at the Goodwill for $2.00. They're the kind made in painting factories in CHina. Then I just fooled around with simple ephemera and typed quotations on the, I actually sold several. Everyone can afford a genuine oil painting!
They're about 4"x6 " inches long.

Out of the closet artist

So, even though I showed my work in October, I hadn't told some of my friends. Friday we had our annual Holiday party for Tracy's students and our friends. Now, some of my friends are what I call"real" artists, that is they have studied academic art, make their living from their art, etc... And they were at the party. I hung some of my assemblages and collages on the walls-usually I just keep them in my "workspace" (that's a whole other story!). And guess what-they liked them! I feel like Sally Fields at the Oscars. Now they all want to come to the next show in April-so the bar is rising. Anyways, it made me feel more motivated.

Giant Van Gogh

I have been going back and forth on I-70 from California or Colorado to the east coast it seems like forever. A while back I started seeing signs for a "giant Van Gogh" in Kansas, but somehow never seemed to have the timing to see it. That's unusual-because I try to never pass up the opportunity to see a giant anything. Well, this summer we managed to hit it in daylight and voila-it is fabulous. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you don't have the time to go to Amsterdam and see the Van Gogh museum

My neighborhood

I live in a fairly-okay-let's say very conservative town. The two interesting old areas are very cool-Old Colorado City-the Westside- and Downtown. I've lived in both of them. I loved the west side, but there were always a few too many pitbull owners and strange guys with really long beards and aluminum foil covered windows for my taste. (Sorry if you have a long beard and an aluminum foil hat, I'd probably like you, I just don't need to live next door,kthxbai).Outside of those areas the housing is generally bland. We're not talking cool 50s ranch bland we're talking miles of expensive sand coloured garages in front of the house bland.
So-this is what I like about my neighborhood. We're not historically perfect -just on the edge of the historic district, but it's like a hidden gem. These pictures were taken at the end of summer. There is an old man who heats his house with mounds of wood. There's a metal artist who keeps half of a WWII uboat buoy in his back yard (He used the other half to make a hot tub). There's a house with a big metal eye on the front of it, grama and grandpa houses with year round plastic flowers, old TB huts, a lady who grows thousands (really) of dahlias. I aspire to be the artist they all are. And who wouldn't love a neighborhood with a real drive-in restaurant and a lawnmower hospital!!!

I am going to start posting some of the MANY pieces of ephemera I have-feel free to use them -most are in public domain now. These are from a French men's humour magazine called Frou Frou from 1902-they would be interesting in collage or on atcs.